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AnthonyV's 148mph 8s XO1 - Video and GPS

I know you guys have been waiting to see a complete run of the 8s XO1 that I've been running. Well, here you go. Unedited, uncut, and with a GPS confirmation immediately after the run. It utilizes the Kershaw design 8s mount kit, Castle XL2 ESC, and Leopard motor. If I decide to keep the car, I will more than likely make a custom fiberglass body to increase the cars aerodynamics. I also have another set of tires that I run which seem to do a bit better than the stock slicks. It's very difficult to find time to go out and run the car yet alone have someone come out to film and clock it with a radar gun.

A few notes about the video:

1) Very bad start off of the line. You can see the car veered towards the curb and took me a while to get it tracking straight.

2) I did not lay into full throttle until the car passed by me. When it passed by the camera it was probably going around 80mph. Usually I hit around 100-105mph and I'm already in full throttle way before it passes by me compared to my other runs that have been 130+mph.

3) I ended up running the car out of the range of the transmitter which is why I had to walk towards the vehicle. This is the first time that I've ran it out of range on the 8s set-up. I lost a lot of runway due to the lousy start.

4) I stopped the timer on the GPS once the body was removed. I am pointing at the screen to show the speed as well as MPH indication. Telemetry speed is always wrong. I simply use it as a reference. I knew when it showed 194mph that the car was in the 140's when compared to my other runs.

5) I will have more video's up provided the weather holds up like it currently is. I plan on having 2 or 3 camera men so that the video can capture the car passing by when it is going 140+mph. I also plan on having a confirmation speed via radar gun. If Traxxas ever gets the clear XO1 body's in then I'll also have a nice in cabin video of the run. I'll also leave the rear window clear so that I will not have to pull the body after each run to view the speed. As you can see, I tape down the edges prior to my runs. The brace on the vehicle also helps to keep the roof of the body rigid at these high speeds. I'll be honest... running cars at this speed is a pain in the butt and very time consuming. Getting the perfect run combined with a complete video is even a bigger pain.

I'm more than welcome to share specifics of the set-up if you guys have any questions. This car is fun but I really don't have time to run it as much as I'd like to. Thanks to Miles for coming out to film today.

wow thats pretty quick ,
where you using the bsr foams ?
ive never thought of speed runs as time consuming really , find the street and do some runs and pack up and gone should take no more then 20-30 min now on road track racing , now thats time consuming take up your whole day and cost alot more then owning these cars
i think the reason your telemetry is reading so high is probably due to the tires
btw not saying the gps or anyone is lying but unedited uncut is you put the car on your truck bed hatch , reset the gps to zero then put the body on tape it then run it and come back and show results .

Awesome run... I am having problems with my aerodynamics... was doing about 75 today and went airborne and crashed breaking stuff as I slammed into the curb ughhh.. How can I increase the downforce?

The front splitter/canards work well on both of my applications. However, the front end needs additional weight. I'll post some pictures if I get a chance tomorrow on the added weight that I use. I run weight on both my 6s and 8s xo1 in order to help keep the front planted down. As far as rear down force, get rid of the stock wing and make a customer adjustable spoiler (flat).

Originally Posted by BennyG6

wow thats pretty quick ,
where you using the bsr foams ?

My 8s set-up does not seem to do that well with the BSR foams. The amount of power and throttle sensitivity that the 8s has compared to the 6s is night and day. I have not tried the BSR foams since going with the new spoiler design.

Originally Posted by BennyG6

i think the reason your telemetry is reading so high is probably due to the tires
.

No, they are stock XO1 slicks on the 8s. The reason the telemetry does not read is because it is a mathematical calculation. You cannot enter into the TraxxasLink the specifics of my set-up. For example, it thinks I am still running a 1717 motor with the MMM ESC on 6s. I am running neither of these and there is no way to simply program it into the application. I use telemetry as a reference only. If I break a certain MPH on the telemetry then I know it will be worthwhile to remove the body and see what the actual GPS speed is. I use it more to monitor voltage and engine temperatures more than anything though. I made a point to show the telemetry speed to document that you cannot go by reported telemetry values.

Now, if you look at my 6s application when I'm running the BSR foams then yes... it has roughly a 8-12% variation in speed due to the smaller diameter tire. Again, I use telemetry as a 'reference' only. Also, it is important to record the runs and view them afterwards. Sometimes you'll get a 'spike' in the peak RPM with the telemetry. You know you have a good run when you hold a nice steady speed for a decent duration of time.

Originally Posted by BennyG6

ive never thought of speed runs as time consuming really , find the street and do some runs and pack up and gone should take no more then 20-30 min now on road track racing , now thats time consuming take up your whole day and cost alot more then owning these cars

Running the 8s set-up is not like running the 6s set-up. The 8s set-up requires a specific area to run. It is a lot more skiddish than the 6s and if you lose control... then you're going to break stuff. I learned my lesson after hitting a curb at 75mph. The 8s set-up is much heavier than the 6s set-up which means it takes much longer to slow the vehicle down if you don't want to lose control and wipe out. I've been everywhere and the road in the video seems to be the best one around for high speed runs. Also keep in mind, the road that we run at is a public road with a high volume of traffic. Every few minutes a car/truck or 18 wheeler drives down which results in having to stop the run. Due to my gearing, I pay close attention to my engine temperatures. If it exceeds a certain temperature I will bring the car back, untape everything, then allow it to cool with either a fan or inside of my car with the AC turned on. I also usually review the recorded datalogs after each one of my runs to verify that everything is working properly. There has been a time that it took me over 45 minutes to get a single run in. Also, I don't just go out there with my car to run. I pack up pretty much everything with me when I go run this set-up. Build a 140+mph car and you'll see how frustrating they can be.

Originally Posted by BennyG6

btw not saying the gps or anyone is lying but unedited uncut is you put the car on your truck bed hatch , reset the gps to zero then put the body on tape it then run it and come back and show results .

I agree with you completely. We actually attempted to do this today with several runs. Something would go wrong each time... traffic, run was cut off early, hit a dip in the road which throws tracking off, engine temp a little too high, forgot to start the GPS recording, phone battery started going low, etc. As you see, I tape my body on each time and check the wing angle as well. It starts to become a huge pain to film everything from the start to only find out an 18 wheeler is coming down the street and you have to bring the car back because the temperatures are getting a big higher than you'd like to see. Also, prior to my runs I will also do a few burn outs in order to warm the tires up so that they are nice and sticky. So to make a long story short, I got frustrated and said just film it when I'm ready to do the run after I realized we were starting to run low on camera battery.

But as I said, I agree with you. Plans are to have several of my buddies out there and have them at different locations with camera's as you never know exactly where the end of the run will be. The only thing about having a video from the very beginning to the very end is the fact that you'll be watching a boring video that's at least 6 minutes long, lol. Then add in the amount of time it takes the gun man to walk back about 1/4 mile to report with the clocked radar speed unless you another person filming at that exact location.

We have used a radar gun before on this vehicle and the GPS readings are both accurate and precise. We have clocked it with a radar gun at 145mph about a month ago. Whenever I get around to getting a perfect run on video you'll not only have GPS verification but a radar gun as well as a camera view closer to the end of the running area. From past results, we have seen higher speeds with the radar gun when compared to GPS. Nothing crazy... but usually a few MPH higher on the gun than the GPS unit. This is more than likely due to the sampling rate of the GPS unit.

Wow thats awesome!
20 mph away from the fastest Rc record!
I think you should bump it up to 10s!
I think the Mamba Xl2 can take it, if not it costs $100 to fix it non warranty by castle!
You will probably break the world speed record!

I've chewed up 3 of them to date. Not to mention having to repair them after the threads for the set screws strip out. Making sure the bottom of the set screw is machined flat and using loctite seems to help.

Originally Posted by YOLOer

Wow thats awesome!
20 mph away from the fastest Rc record!
I think you should bump it up to 10s!
I think the Mamba Xl2 can take it, if not it costs $100 to fix it non warranty by castle!
You will probably break the world speed record!

The 'official' record is not up to date... from what I've been told 180's have already been hit. Power is not an issue at this speed... aerodynamics of the vehicle are. That is why all of the fastest RC's out there are all custom set-ups. If I had to do this over again from the start I probably would have gone the custom route. Throwing more power in this car would just lead to more problems at high speeds. For example, there are guys out there running in the 130's on only 4s. My XO1 is a heavy pig on 8s. I've thought about designing a custom body but my time is very limited. I've even considered selling this set-up. The one thing that has held me back is not having a better area to run this car at. I'd love to get on an airport run way.

Originally Posted by PBO

It sounds like you hold the throttle...great run. I can't watch it again though? Says its unavailable

I'd like to see the specs if you don't mind posting them up? especially some more photos with & without the body on if that's not too much or a build thread link if I've missed it?

The aerodynamics are of particular interest. Have you considered adding vertical elements at the rear? you may be "too slippery"

Strange... the video is up and working for me? The motor is no joke... you can actually hear the car running at full throttle almost 1/4 away from where the video was being filmed. I am actually running a custom spoiler and it has worked very well on this set-up. The angle can be adjusted for increasing/decreasing down force on the rear. With the stock wing it was very difficult to keep the rear end from braking loose once full throttle was applied. 8s is night and day compared to 6s. I can lay into full throttle on my 6s XO1 and stock wing... but the 8s is a completely different story.

I never did a build thread... I kind of just periodically posted in another members build thread (bringit) to try and help him through some of the problems he was having. I'll get some pictures up soon and edit my original post. Here's a better view from back in October.

The 'official' record is not up to date... from what I've been told 180's have already been hit. Power is not an issue at this speed... aerodynamics of the vehicle are. That is why all of the fastest RC's out there are all custom set-ups. If I had to do this over again from the start I probably would have gone the custom route. Throwing more power in this car would just lead to more problems at high speeds. For example, there are guys out there running in the 130's on only 4s. My XO1 is a heavy pig on 8s. I've thought about designing a custom body but my time is very limited. I've even considered selling this set-up. The one thing that has held me back is not having a better area to run this car at. I'd love to get on an airport run way.

Strange... the video is up and working for me? The motor is no joke... you can actually hear the car running at full throttle almost 1/4 away from where the video was being filmed. I am actually running a custom spoiler and it has worked very well on this set-up. The angle can be adjusted for increasing/decreasing down force on the rear. With the stock wing it was very difficult to keep the rear end from braking loose once full throttle was applied. 8s is night and day compared to 6s. I can lay into full throttle on my 6s XO1 and stock wing... but the 8s is a completely different story.

I know a couple of people have unofficially been in the high 170's, might have missed their updates on faster speeds though

The Leopard isn't a bad motor, they need to be pushed hard to get over 35,000 rpm in my experience. Have you thought about buying a Neu motor?

I was fortunate enough to film this run. It was amazing to see this car run. I would of doubt it myself if i wasn't there. Thanks Anthony V. The video does not do it justice. I just cant believe you want to get rid of it.

The Leopard isn't a bad motor, they need to be pushed hard to get over 35,000 rpm in my
experience. Have you thought about buying a Neu motor?

Your inbox is full so I cannot send you a reply to your personal message. I was actually looking at the Castle Neu motors when I wrecked the first leopard... but I couldn't guarantee that it would work with my current motor mount assembly. Yes, I could make a custom mount... but the goal of this car originally was only 120-130mph while being easy and cost effective. I wanted something that was 'drop-in' and ready to run. If I was going to drop in excess of $2k+ I would have built something from scratch... which is always the best way to go when you're going for the speeds I'm at now. For the amount of money I have in this XO1... you really can't beat it. There was of course a learning curve with it... but much less compared to building something from scratch.

Originally Posted by BL-Bob

Thumbs up to the better evidence trail you guys. Can we all stop wasting time on the
"telementary" readings by now? Nice work AV, the new XO-1 King of
Speed!

I win with telemetry contest at 194mph too!!! haha. During initial testing of this car I saw speeds between 600mph - 999mph, lol.

Originally Posted by Miles Long

I was fortunate enough to film this run. It was amazing to see this car run. I would of
doubt it myself if i wasn't there. Thanks Anthony V. The video does not do it justice. I just cant believe you want
to get rid of it.

The only thing I wish was that I had you standing about 1/8 down road from me for this video so the camera would have caught it going faster than just 80mph when it passed by. It looks like a turtle in the video. Traffic didn't seem to help us out much though while we were running. Next time we'll get a few more people out. If someone pays the right price I'll consider selling it.

I'm already working on a new body design which will help increase the vehicle's aerodynamics and stability. I'm also going to change the wing design. This one works... but I've got a much better design in mind. I'm going to start looking into getting on either a 1/4 mile track or an airport runway for higher speeds. Going 148mph on the current road I run at is pretty much just asking for trouble. The one thing that kind of worried me is the fact that I ran the car out of range and sight going 148mph. I'll more than likely gear everything down for the new body/wing testing and see what kind of results I have for 120-130mph since it is much easier to clock and control at lower speeds than 148mph.

Your inbox is full so I cannot send you a reply to your personal message. I was actually looking at the Castle Neu motors when I wrecked the first leopard... but I couldn't guarantee that it would work with my current motor mount assembly. Yes, I could make a custom mount... but the goal of this car originally was only 120-130mph while being easy and cost effective. I wanted something that was 'drop-in' and ready to run. If I was going to drop in excess of $2k+ I would have built something from scratch... which is always the best way to go when you're going for the speeds I'm at now. For the amount of money I have in this XO1... you really can't beat it. There was of course a learning curve with it... but much less compared to building something from scratch.

Inbox is clear now

I was thinking more a Steve Neu motor rather than the Castle Neu. They are among the most efficient of brushless motors available

That rear wing is similar to what I'm making. I'm going to try the aerodynamics route for more speed vs increasing power. (I am getting better batts though). I hear you on the time it takes to do this. Even though I run my car differently than you, making 1 speedrun video is about a 2 hour ordeal every time. Need to drive to location. Get the little details sorted out, there will always be some little glitch that happens no matter how much prep was done at home. Then when you're all ready to go inevitably some traffic shows up outta nowhere even though i'm in the middle of nowhere. If 3 vehicles are the only ones to come down the road all day long....it will be when i'm there trying to run the XO-1.

I was thinking more a Steve Neu motor rather than the Castle Neu. They are among the most efficient of brushless motors available

Ahhh... the Steve Neu's. Those are the ones all the big boys use. Had I known what I know today I probably would have gone with one. But to be perfectly honest with you, this Leopard is doing pretty darn good.

I am still getting used to the throttle control on the 8s which is why it appears so slow for the first few hundred feet in the 148mph video. Once you jam into the throttle the car takes off like a bullet. With a bit more tweaking I should be able full throttle much sooner which will require much less running distance.

I got a chance to do a little more testing over the weekend with the new aero set-up. We made some tweaks to the front which has lowered the height of the front end significantly at high speeds. Thanks to Miles and a few other guys for coming out to clock me with the radar gun, get footage, and monitor exactly what the car does at higher speeds. The new wing design also SMOKES the old design. I am not posting a video of the run up because I'm still in the development phase of everything... but we managed to pick up 9mph after tweaking everything with the new aero design.

A few notes about the comparisons. Run length was roughly 750ft for both runs. Full throttle was not layed into for very long. Significantly less distance than before. I also geared everything down tremendously which has knocked the top speeds down to where I need them for testing. I've got a chewed up spur/pinion thanks to a rock. We had 2 guys with radar guns clocking the car one beside me and one about 400 ft down. Unfortunately another 18 wheeler showed up and the run was cut short. Miles Long (camera man 400 ft down) could not register the car as it passed by him because of safety reasons as well as having to stop the 18 wheeler from running over the car. This is why you see 118MPH on one gun and 123MPH on the GPS. Both guns sampled at 118MPH roughly 300-400 ft from my position. In this case, one radar gun was out of range and the other sampled where the other one left off. For this run, the GPS is going to be what the speed comparison is based on. According to XL2 datalogs the 114mph vs 123MPH runs were very close to identical conditions. Whenever I'm out testing, it's very important that conditions/samples are all held equal.

So long story short, apples to apples the new wing and aero set-up picked up 9mph top speed and tracks like a bullet. I will be doing a bit more testing before gearing back up for higher speeds. On a side note, the current road that I'm running at is getting a bit on the dangerous side now for the speeds that I'm at. There are 2 pot holes that just showed up in the middle of the road and traffic has really put a damper on things.

This weekend I'll be going out for some further testing. Hopefully it will warm back up so that traction is not an issue. I'm currently working with one of the local tracks to run at in the future for speeds of 150+ mph. With the pot holes and the close call that I had with the 18 wheeler... I just don't feel comfortable at these speeds anymore.

Now that i think about it.. You ran 93 with a broken axle lol. 93 with a snapped axle on thunder powers and 99 on the traxxas batteries right? Heck, its been since march since ive seen the car. I have to see this new setup man!

Yea... I've come a long way. That car you saw run was actually my 6s XO1. I ended up buying another one in order to install the 8s set-up on. The 6s runs so well that I didn't want to mess anything up. On the road we were running it will clock 101-103mph over and over and over again with stock traxxas lipo's.

Those thunder powers are nasty lipo's... they actually pick up a few MPH on my 6s compared to the traxxas ones. I still remember when we ran them the first time and we were 7mph slower to only find out it was because we snapped an axle, lol. Give me a call if you want to run with us sometime. We're currently trying to gain airport access to do further testing. That and flying 3d quadcopters... which are a ridiculous amount of fun.

I completely forgot to add... we broke well into the 150's. Still doing some aero testing but it's showing some pretty great results. The limiting factor on this car is my running area. I really need access to a better location.

Yea... I've come a long way. That car you saw run was actually my 6s XO1. I ended up buying another one in order to install the 8s set-up on. The 6s runs so well that I didn't want to mess anything up. On the road we were running it will clock 101-103mph over and over and over again with stock traxxas lipo's.

Those thunder powers are nasty lipo's... they actually pick up a few MPH on my 6s compared to the traxxas ones. I still remember when we ran them the first time and we were 7mph slower to only find out it was because we snapped an axle, lol. Give me a call if you want to run with us sometime. We're currently trying to gain airport access to do further testing. That and flying 3d quadcopters... which are a ridiculous amount of fun.

I have nothing to run but my mouth... LOL... Im out of the hobby due to it being to expensive and time consuming.

A lot of guys are doubting the 1360kv can hit speeds of 150mph. Well... I never said that I am running the 1360kv It's funny to see some of the comments that youtube bring out, lol. Everyone assumes it's a 1360kv.

I need to get back out and get an actual video of the car passing when it's at speeds above 130mph. Everyone thinks for some reason just because the gps reads 148mph that it is doing 148mph when it passes by. We've had some unpredictable weather lately... one day it's in the 70s then the next it's in the 30's.

A lot of guys are doubting the 1360kv can hit speeds of 150mph. Well... I never said that I am running the 1360kv It's funny to see some of the comments that youtube bring out, lol. Everyone assumes it's a 1360kv.

I doesn't concern me what motor you actually use or what final speed you claim but to present information as 'xyz' & then turn around & smugly remark about how 'everyone assumes' make you look a bit foolish

this will always happen when ppl claim speeds on a car that no one ever done or seen before . but im sure the next vid will put the doubters to rest with gps and double radar gun showing all angles . best bet would be dont even cut the vid .. reset gps to zero , put body on run it take body off show gps show guns . that would put anyone doubters to sleep ..

the i didnt even say what motor im using remind of those guys with the rustlers who would put a peice of cloth over their trannies so ppl cant see what they gearing setup is <edit>

Kershaw has other options available from the link that you provided. Kershaw didn't design the Castle XL2 ESC, he didn't design the Leopard motor, and it doesn't come with anything to install the ESC with. The kershaw set-up is essentially a motor mount and brace to mount a Leopard motor.

BennyG6... you're correct with the radar gun, GPS set, and multiple non-edited camera angles. You guys really don't understand how much time is required to actually run a car that does these speeds on a PUBLIC road. The GPS is accurate/precise from all of the runs we have performed up until about 148mph. After that speed the sampling rate is too slow since the vehicle is essentially traveling at 220ft/sec.

All of the information I have provided has been accurate (set-up info, speeds, etc). I can't help if people assume things. Last time I checked, just because someone assumes something doesn't make you foolish by default. The 'smug assumption' comment was more along the lines directed at MilesLong in relation to some of the local RC guys here that found my youtube account and have picked this set-up to pieces. I apologize if I misled you once again.